New Studio Thoughts

Monday, August 17, 2015

Dye Camp- This is something I have been talking about trying for a while now, so here we go I have a location where we can stay overnight Friday through Sunday and work all day Saturday and part of the day Sunday. The location will be in Edwardsville, IL and the cost includes room and board. Its a rustic location with cabins steps away from the workspace, you’ll need to bring your sleeping bag. But the upside will be the s'mores and campfires as well as an amazing scenery. Additional cloth and items will be available for purchase that weekend in limited amounts, so if you want more of something please pre order. Please email me if you would like to sign up or have any questions nodesignstextiles@gmail.com

The cost is $250.00

--This includes 2 nights in the cabins with snacks and meals, Saturday morning through Sunday morning.

--All Dyes and Chemicals and tools for dyeing Silk, Cotton, and Rayon. Including an indigo vat and Thiox for dye removing.

--The following items to dye are also included in the cost. this is over $50.00 in materials

Tuesday, October 8, 2013

So I got an email from a old friend, and she asked how I have been, at first I thought of my long list of life complaints. Then I stopped and thought about how lucky I am. Yes I do not have constant and reliable full time employment at this time but I am teaching what I love, fibers. Working at home is not the greatest thing because I also do laundry, clean and care for all of the animals, but I can wear my comfy clothes while I do that, prepare for teaching and work in the studio.

I really thought about this as I started to cook my breakfast. While cooking my eggs from my own chickens, smearing jelly that I made on my toast, pouring my coffee into a mug made by a friend and a hand woven napkin to sit down to eat with. I have a good life I have a life that is full of simple beauty.

And I really like this life that I have, I get to work in the studio several times a week and that is a privilege. I dyed a bunch of yarn a few weeks ago to make some kitchen towels with. I had one thing in mind when I went to the dye studio (my garage and driveway) and this is what came out. Not at all what I had imagined but I think it will work. So now I have to finish what is on the loom so I can ball this new yarn off and wind off a warp and get to work.

I also have two friends and a stepdaughter in my life who are expecting little ones in the next year so the baby knitting has begun, and I’ll post photos when I can of those projects.

Monday, May 6, 2013

So I have been busy at the loom, I have finished off one warp and it was a long one. I wove 5 rugs and I am so happy with them. 4 are destined for etsy (two were listed today) and one is for our bathroom. I have a rag rug that I purchased years ago that fits in the bathroom perfectly, so I wove one the same size, so that there is always one down that fits just right.

So here are the finished rugs listed on etsy

And here are the two destined for etsy.

While I was hand hemming all of the rugs I got started on the next warp and I am crazy about rug so it is another rug warp. I am excited to see what I get out of the next warp, my step daughter has placed an order for a rug from this warp, but I should get 4 more rugs from it as well.

But on Saturday I went to a friends Llama and Alpaca farm for shearing day. So there were many pictures taken but I edited down to these mostly pre haircuts.........

This years baby

Last years baby Oiron, he is so friendly

I think I need a haircut I can't see anymore

﻿﻿﻿﻿﻿﻿﻿﻿﻿﻿﻿﻿﻿﻿﻿﻿

Sisters

﻿﻿﻿﻿﻿﻿﻿﻿﻿

Now back to the warping board to get this new warp wound off and me back to weaving.

Wednesday, April 17, 2013

So it has been a bit, but I have been really busy. Life can get crazy and I am trying to slow down and enjoy some of it. I have been designing and proposing classes finalizing teaching schedules and trying to get some studio time in. I have a booked summer, I’ll be teaching both kids and adults at Craft Alliance in St. Louis, MO and Lillian By Design in Alton, IL. I’ll post more about those classes as the approach and as I get class samples done.

I had a birthday this past weekend and a friend invited me to the Southern IL Sheep and Wool Festival in Waterloo, IL.

I had birthday money from my mom so I did a bit of shopping. I love Dyeabolical, I love her fibers and her colors, her names of colorway are really fun as well.

This is 70%Blue Faced Leicester/ 30% Firestar

The back bat I am unsure of the colorway name but the front colorway is Sid Fishious

This is 100% superwash merino wool alter ego in the colorway Firefly I think this will become socks. I love this color I had two skeins on yarn in my hand and my step-daughter picked this one, good choice Em.

Then yesterday I received a package that had been ordered for me from Dyeabolical for my birthday as well by my wife. I was super excited to receive more fiber. The fiber is 85%Polwarth Wool/15% Tussah Silk in We're All Mad Here The yarn is 100% Superwash merino wool in Super Ego in the colorway ThunderboomI gave her colorways and fiber types and yarn weights and I think she did great.

I however have gotten some loom time in just getting it threaded and beamed but we are ready to go now and today I get to start weaving I am so excited to get going i am working on rag rugs this time, we will see where this leads..........................

Monday, March 25, 2013

So its been awhile, I had made that promise to myself about blogging more often, and then my life got crazy and I did not know how to talk about it. In the end the place I have worked for a long time, and felt like was a big part of me, closed. It was a small business and the owner got tired and just wanted to be done, it wasn’t financial which is good. But I have been sad and the process of closing was exhausting mentally and physically, it felt like a long goodbye with old friends. But on the flip side while I look for something new I can get a bit more studio time in and catch up on a lot of work.

I am staying positive about all of this, before I found out about my losing my job I was offered a spinning wheel at a great price and I am so glad I bought it. I haven’t named her yet but her style name is Elizabeth and so for now its been lizzy...... I am in love.

So here she is....................

And this is what I spun on her for the first project it is an alpaca with sari silk bits blended in. Did I say how much I love my new wheel, this yarn was so easy and fun to spin.

I am also trying to get back to weaving I have a half threaded loom that has been siting from before Christmas. So back at it I hope to get everything threaded and get to work this week. The problem is I never do short warps, and this is a long one. It will be good to be weaving again. I am also in need of updateing my etsy shop which can be found here https://www.etsy.com/shop/NODesignsTextiles . Check it out and let me know what you think.

Monday, December 31, 2012

Ok here we are at the end of the year, and one of my resolutions is to post to the blog more often. I am saying twice a month but I am hoping for much more. Life gets crazy and sometimes I have to reset and start again. So today is reset day, and I am adding another resolution to the list while I am at it. I am going to try to slow down and enjoy the little things a lot more. I have a feeling these things are going to come from my home, my studio work and my yard. I do not think I have shared this here before but I have chickens we started with a small number and what we have is a coop for 20-30 with 5 hens in it. They can entertain me for hours, so I am sharing a photo today that made me smile. I had a hectic morning with a flat tire and a few hours at the repair place followed by some more errands. I came home and let the dogs out and walked to the coop and what did I find 4 big brown eggs waiting for me.

On the walk back to the house I saw this it made me smile again, the fresh snow was melting and raining off the tree above the fresh snow on the ground. The pattern made me think of silk dyed with kamosage knots a shibori technique. I think this photo may end up printed out and hanging in the studio I see great potential in it for what I am not sure yet. I am looking at the new year with a great amount of hope, hope that I will find more studio time, hope that I will find more family time and hope that things will go smoothly and that I will notice the little things more and more.So if you want to follow me on facebook you can find me at http://www.facebook.com/pages/NODesignsor check out my etsy store at http://www.etsy.com/shop/NODesignsTextiles

Saturday, June 30, 2012

Nostalgia

So its been a long while, I have started new post on several occasions and never finished the writing. I million things have happened in the time I was away. I moved back to the area I grew up in, I am living in my grandmother's old house and really loving being here. I planed a wedding and got married. Through the marriage I gained a wonderful step daughter, and she is the inspiration for this blog post. I grew up being a Girl Scout and continued to be a scout through high school even earning the highest award possible in scouting the Gold Award. I am a life time member of the Girl Scouts, so anytime someone is selling cookies I am buying, and any group of scouts fundraising I am stopping to see if I can help out. But this summer we had my stepdaughter E for a week so she could go to Girl Scout day camp and nostalgia set in. I went and took pictures of her doing the closing flag ceremony on Tues, just being there and taking pictures of the flag pole, and then the ceremony made me nostalgic for the simple days I had at camp.Then I found out they were in need of additional moms for the overnight, and I could be of help. So after work Thursday I went out to camp parked my car where we would be sleeping and walked across camp to meet the girls for the evening activities. I feel at times like I grew up at this camp, I made amazing memories there. And I was happy to be able to be at camp again and even happier to be seeing E participate in these activities. Now you could not pay me to go back in time to those ages, but I have to say that at camp I was happiest growing up.

E took this picture of us together at camp.

It is amazing that one night sleeping on a mat could get me jump started in such a way, but I have a million ideas floating in my head of projects I want to do and Ideas for fine art pieces I want to make. I have been working on a scarf that has been great fun it is the Mini Mania Scarf by Sarah Core. I have been using min skeins up like crazy and the colors just keep changing, it is a simple linen stitch but the color is what keeps me so interested. I am going to try to post once a week what I have been up to.